The Irish Lottery Series Box Set (1-3)

by Gerald Hansen

  But Padraig had already popped another video into the machine, and they were goggling the opening credits of Carrie. Siofra reached for a pipe cleaner.

  CHAPTER 56

  “MERCIFUL JESUS OF NAZARETH,” Dymphna moaned.

  Small cylinder-type things with pointy bits dug into her back, and she struggled to remove herself from them. Pain shot through her right ankle, and she squealed. She had already experienced childbirth, so she had felt worse, but still tears stung her eyes. She shuffled her body with little crab-like motions of the hands across the floor, until her fingers found her handbag and the flashlight. The beam cut through the darkness, and Dymphna gasped, shocked, at what surrounded her. The barrels and handles of assault rifles poked out of crates, grenades lay on the concrete. Dymphna realized she had been rolling around on rounds of ammunition. Handbag slung over her shoulder, she slithered through the twirling bullets towards the door, yelping in pain.

  After five pain-filled attempts to place her right foot on the floor and stand, she finally knew her right ankle must be broken, and the laws of biology would not allow her to perform that act. She placed her left foot on the ground, grabbed a crate of handguns and pulled her body upright. She hobbled to the door and tried the handle, but of course it was padlocked from outside.

  She whimpered as she dug through her handbag and located her cellphone. She punched Bridie’s number.

  “Och, Dymphna, ye wouldn’t believe the day I’ve been having here at the Kebab—”

  “Bridie, Bridie! Listen to me!” Dymphna squealed.

  “Have ye found the negatives?”

  “Feck the negatives. I’ve fallen through the ceiling and landed in a lockup two yobs be’s using to hide their weapons,” she wailed into the phone. “Surrounded by rifles and grenades and God alone knows what, so I am. Terrorists, themmuns must be. I’ve broken me ankle and all, and kyanny walk like others can. Hopping around like a right eejit, I’ve been, and the pain be’s wile terrible. And I’m afeared the door’s gonny open any second and it’ll be them terrorist simpletons, and I’ll get meself a bullet in the skull.”

  “Och, decommissioned in 1997, the IRA was,” Bridie said, infuriating Dymphna with her knowledge. “Themmuns turned their guns in to the British government donkey’s years ago, sure, and now be’s respectable members of society with seats in Parliament and all.”

  “Ye jumped up cow, quit yer babbling on and get me the feck outta here! It must be some new terrorist group I’ve discovered.”

  “Now ye mention it, I do mind reading something in the paper online about some suspicions the Filth has about a new—”

  “Come you now and free me!”

  “Call the Filth.”

  “Catch yerself on!”

  There was a pause, and surely Bridie realized her suggestion was ludicrous; was she all knowledge and no common sense?

  “Call an ambulance, sure.”

  “I could’ve done that meself, ye headbin! No one kyanny know where I’ve been. Themmuns’ll know I’ve discovered their secret with hospital reports and the like if an ambulance picks me up here. Marked, me entire family’ll be. Tarred and feathered, kneecapped, all of us are sure to be. Ye’ve got to sneak me outta here, and the manager of the lockups’ll be back from his break in...” She looked at her watch. “Half an hour.”

  “Ye kyanny walk, sure. How in the name of the heavenly Father do ye expect me—”

  “Nick a trolley from the Top-Yer-Trolley car park Ye can transport me that way and park me somewhere far away, then call the ambulance. Och, the pain! The pain!”

  “I’ve only another fifteen minutes left to me break. I kyanny get the sack.”

  “Please, Bridie,” Dymphna said, tears rolling down her cheeks, pleading in her trembling voice. “Tell that manager git ye’ve a family emergency!”

  “Och—!”

  “Take a taxi and get off two blocks from the lockups so’s the driver doesn’t be any the wiser.”

  “A taxi? Are ye mad? The price of them the day! And how am I meant to board a taxi with a trolley?”

  “Feck the taxi, then. Ye’ve to save me life, Bridie. Get an extension on yer break.”

  “For the love of God!” Bridie muttered down the line. She heaved a sigh. “The things I do for ye, Dymphna Flood! Right ye are, then. See ye in ten minutes. Cheerio.”

  She hung up, and Dymphna’s tears of pain and anguish sprinkled the bullets and grenades around her as she waited for rescue.

  CHAPTER 57

  IN THE INCIDENT ROOM of the Derry division of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Inspector McLaughlin gave a rundown of the sad crimes that had recently surfaced. The troops sat, notebooks at the ready, scribbling down the details of the four pensioners attacked with rocks; the two young males who set fire to the ladies’ toilets of the Craiglooner; the boy whose lower lip was bitten by a homeless dog when he tried to pet it; the elderly woman whose handbag was snatched as she exited the parish hall after making a donation to the church’s weekly bingo draw; the man whose lung was punctured by a screwdriver while he was withdrawing money from an ATM; the five cases of whiskey stolen from an off-license; the receptionist at Altnagelvin Hospital threatened at knife-point for an empty prescription pad; the possibly intoxicated male singing loudly inside a vehicle in the Quayside Shopping Center parking lot, then yelling, using profane language and exposing himself at passersby.

  McLaughlin took a deep breath as he came to the finale, glancing down at a fist-full of documents.

  “And then there be’s this, this...woman!” he spat, pointing to a blown-up artist’s rendering of the unknown suspect: horsey head, overbite and bleached ponytails. “We’ve recently discovered yer woman probably be’s responsible for a smorgasbord of crimes alarming in range and frequency. As youse can see, she be’s distinctive physically, and, indeed, it was wer sketch artist down the station here that brought her to me attention; he seemed to be sketching out the same woman time and again. Most disturbing in her long list of suspected crimes be’s the administering of barbiturates while posing as an OsteoCare volunteer to pensioners in Creggan Heights, a Mrs. Ming and Mrs. Gee, to what ultimate purpose or for what motive we be’s still unaware. Mrs. Gee suffered an adverse reaction, and yer woman up on the board there is now wanted for attempted manslaughter. Hours, we’ve spent, interrogating Mrs. Gee, but she still claims she hasn’t a clue who the woman be’s. Youse is all aware of the culture of silence in this town what makes wer job so difficult. A woman matching the same description also be’s wanted for inciting violence outside the Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow primary school. Yer woman was also sighted by an undercover agent in the Craiglooner Pub, trying to solicit illegal vintage absinthe; to no success, but. She was attacked by a group of thugs outside the pub and the contraband stolen from her, but, needless to say, she did not file a complaint.”

  “Me neck be’s exhausted from the rate me head be’s spinning at!” gasped one younger copper, clutching his aching skull.

  But further back in the incident room, a seasoned pro—one of the few Catholic coppers—nudged another, also a Catholic, and led him just out the room to the tea, coffee and oxtail soup machine that had been out of order for months. Lynch whispered to Briggs:

  “I near shite meself when I looked up and saw that sketch of Fionnuala Flood from the Moorside on the board.”

  “Aye, me and all,” Briggs said.

  “Yer man, but,” Lynch whispered on with a knowing nod toward Inspector McLaughlin (now ranting, posing his paunch to the right and then the left, about a new terrorist organization that apparently had sprung up, like a fresh outbreak of genital warts that refused to go away), “must be embarking on some personal vendetta against the poor aul soul.”

  “I thought it wile strange, aye. Most of the housewives we knows be’s engaging in wee harmless crimes to make ends meet, like, and a blind eye always be’s turned.”

  “Another promotion, the inspector must be looking for.”
<
br />   “What could be the reason he’s chosen to single yer woman out, hi?”

  “Och, ye’ve not a clue, have ye? Ye know how yer man there got his promotion to inspector?”

  “Aye, locking away them McDaid brothers and putting an end to their drug cartel.”

  “Word has it the McDaid’s drug-dealing all came to light at the inspector’s daughter’s first holy communion last year. The youngest daughter of yer woman Flood was selling Ecstasy in the front pew to all her mates. His daughter Catherine took one during the service and had a bad reaction, epileptic-like fits right there at the altar, like. The mortification of it all pushed the inspector’s wife off her trolley with madness, so it did. Hasn’t been the same since, so she hasn’t.”

  “So what ye’re telling me is this be’s some form of revenge?”

  “Suddenly Fionnuala Flood be’s public enemy number one for trying to shift some dodgy bottles of absinthe down the pub?”

  “What if one of them Orange bastards on the force chances upon her, but? She’s doesn’t be difficult to miss, like.”

  “I’m keeping me ears pricked,” Lynch said. “If any of themmuns gets closer to finding out her identity, I’ve half a mind to inform her mammy, ye know Mrs. Heggarty from Creggan Estate?”

  Briggs laughed, and admiration shone in his eyes. “Ye mean the matriarch of the Heggarty clan, the mother of all them hooligan sons that dealt in casual violence and petty crime and drug dealing all them years ago? This Fionnuala be’s their wee sister?”

  “Aye. Them hard men brothers of hers moved abroad years ago, so she be’s all on her lonesome here in Derry. Passed the baton of crime over to her, so her brothers musta done. But Mrs. Heggarty be’s the godmother of me cousin Carmel’s seventh daughter.” Lynch nodded, suddenly decided. “A tip-off, I’ll be happy to pass into the aul one’s ear, if the web of wer investigation closes around her daughter.”

  Briggs nodded righteously.

  “Give us Mrs. Heggarty’s number,” he said. “Now there be’s two of us ready to tip her off. I’ll see if I kyanny get Gallagher and Tyrone and Connolly into the loop and all.”

  “That’s set. Now, ye wanted to discuss yer Molly’s christening next Saturday with me?”

  CHAPTER 58

  HER BIG BONES DRENCHED, Bridie fumed as she wrested the shopping cart with one wheel that stuck through the parking lot of Pence-A-Day. The sign on the office still read Closed Until Two. She looked at her Swatch. It was ten to.

  Dymphna had phoned her again when Bridie was puffing her way across Craigavon Bridge in the rain, flinching at the honks and rude comments yelled from passing cars; they made her feel like a woman, though. Dymphna had told her that, now that she thought of it, there was a pair of wire cutters under the third dumpster Bridie could use to cut the padlock off the unit.

  Bridie raced to the dumpster and dug them out. The wire cutters were rusty and mangled, but they’d do the job. As she peeled off the old sock clinging to them, she called Dymphna.

  “What unit does ye be held prisoner in?”

  “I’m of the mind it must be 12B. Just to be sure, but, I’ll yell and ye listen until ye can locate me.”

  Feeling like an idiot, Bridie crept from one door to another, tugging the cart with the reluctant wheel behind her, until she heard Dymphna wailing in Unit 13B.

  Even with her small portions diet, Bridie had all that extra weight to use as leverage on the handles of the wire cutters; she thrust herself into them, and the lock snapped and clattered to the ground. Bridie tugged open the door and bit back the bile at the fog of chain-smoking that escaped into the pelting rain.

  “Bridie! Me savior!” Dymphna wailed, crawling towards her through the ammunition.

  Bridie looked in wonder at the cases of arms piled higgledy piggledy, but there was no time to inspect them. She took hold of Dymphna under her arms and hauled her out.

  “Let’s get ye outta here sharpish. The front left wheel sticks a bit, but I think we can manage. Where do ye want me to place ye?”

  She said this as she trailed Dymphna’s limbs from the unit, hauled them through the rain and plopped them in the shopping cart

  “Just get me outta here,” Dymphna panted through her cigarette. “Och, och, och! Mind me ankle! Outta the Waterside. Over the Craigavon Bridge and leave me somewhere in the Moorside. We can phone for an ambulance from there.”

  Bridie grappled the handle and shoved the shopping cart, wonky wheel squealing in protest, out of the parking lot. The bridge was only half a mile through the wastelands of the dockyards, but it was half a mile in horizontal rain. Bridie huffed and muttered expletives, and Dymphna whimpered and puffed away on a cigarette, and soon the Craigavon Bridge was in sight on the horizon, the nettle-infested fields on either side sloping gently towards the fetid waters of the River Foyle. Only a quarter of a mile left. A car raced by, spattering them in mud.

  “Jesus Lord in Heaven above,” Bridie seethed, the muck lashing down her body and pouring down her face. Dymphna had a speckle or two on her right arm.

  Another car sped through the mud of the road towards them, and Bridie struggled to maneuver the cart wheels to the side, but the car slowed as it approached. Three shaved heads popped out, two with hoods, and the drunken teens whooped and sneered as they passed.

  “Would ye look at the shape of yer woman pushing the trolley!”

  “Skiprat! A face like a bulldog licking piss offa nettle!”

  “A face like a donkey’s abortion, more like! Pure minging oinker!”

  “Yer woman in the trolley, but! Phwoah!”

  “I wouldn’t mind getting me leg over that!”

  Even in her pain, Dymphna ran fingers through her curls and smiled as the car trundled around the corner.

  “Ye’re one pure dick, so ye are, Dymphna!” Bridie roared. “What the bloody feck am I doing this for?!”

  “Och, I’m wile grateful for yer help, Bridie. All the times we’ve spent together—”

  “Aye,” Bridie seethed, asphyxiating the handle of the cart, Dymphna squealing and jerking as the trolley bounced at Bridie’s anger-fueled speed, “and when I look back now, they were the times of blootered, desperate slags! The gropings in the mini-cabs! The vomit in the handbags!”

  “But—Ow! Och, mind yerself, Bridie, I almost popped out, och—Ow!”

  “C’mere til I tell ye,” Bridie hollered, the cart racing, “ye see you, Dymphna? Ye had a brilliant effin charmed life, a fella who loved ye, a wane ye knew the father of—eventually, I mean—a deluxe home in the Waterside, and ye threw it all away. For what, I haven’t a clue, as yer mother's a lunatic, yer father's a drunk, ye’ve two brothers in the nick, a beanflicker perv sister—”

  “That pervy sister of mines has a book published!” Dymphna wailed.

  “Aye, all about the disgrace that is yer family! What does yer Moira call ye in it? Deirdre Frood, with the legs that snap open quicker than a Venus fly-trap, the manky quim crawling with more exotic diseases than an African refugee camp, aren’t ye meant to be?”

  “Where...” Dymphna gasped, clutching the rails of the cart for dear life. “Where did ye read that?”

  “I chanced upon an excerpt of it at...one of me Internet classes. Ye, but, Dymphna, bleating on and on about how yer mother hates ye, and is it any wonder? I kyanny stomach laying eyes on ye meself! And, now that home truths is being spoken, it was me that arranged that date with yer man Paul McCreeney. I shoved yer paralytic limbs into the stool next to him and whispered into yer ear ye should invite him to dinner, as I knew ye had arranged one with Rory and wouldn’t remember a thing, gee-eyed with drink as ye was!”

  “Bridie!” Dymphna whimpered through her cigarette butt. “Why...why would ye do that, but? Ye know I be’s carrying his wane, and—”

  “Aye, and the good Lord help that wane when it pokes its sorry head into this world, with a mother the likes of ye, a gacky, self-centered, jumped up hateful slag!”

  Dymphna yelped as Bridi
e suddenly braked at the top of the riverbank and thrust the shopping cart on its side.

  “Briiidiieee!”

  Dymphna toppled out, hands clawing the air, legs kicking. She screamed at a crack! in her second ankle as she rolled through the nettles and the muck, careening towards the river, her hands whipping instinctively down to her womb to protect her manicure. She wailed as she hit the churning sewage that, had it been deeper than two feet, would have carried her waterlogged body down the river, into Lough Foyle and out into the Atlantic Ocean.

  I kyanny be dealing with this childish palaver no longer, Bridie seethed to herself at the top of the hill, punching emergency numbers into her phone. I’m away off back to work, and I’m weak with hunger and all. I’ll stop off for a portion of curry chips. The paramedics can fish the silly bitch outta the water. Serves her right.

  Off she stomped through the rain, a smile crinkling the cold sore on her hungry mouth as Dymphna’s screams rang out.

  “I’ve just seen a wee girl in the river,” Bridie barked into the phone, realizing it was going to be one long stint in the confessional that Wednesday at St. Molaug’s. Even if her penance was to say the rosary at each of the Stations of the Cross (a very long penance reserved for the most heinous of sins), it would be a delight.

  CHAPTER 59

  FIONNUALA SLUNK OFF the mini-bus at a stop in the Waterside, feeling stripped of her clothing. To mark their territory, the indigenous Protestants had painted the curbs red, white and blue—the colors of the British flag—and Fionnuala attacked them with discreet little kicks as she passed. But she had chosen this location as she was sure nobody would know her; certainly not the pawnbroker she had looked up in the Yellow Pages. She stood before the pawnshop and marveled at how clean their windows were. She slipped Dymphna’s sunglasses on and hustled inside.